A familiar taste of home

I know we didn't move to a different country so there are some of the same restaurants like I had at home that are right around the corner from me now.  Yet there are some in this state that are far out of reach and there are some that are completely missing.  For example, all the common burger joints like Wendy's, McDonald's and Burger King are all here.  There are even Chick Fil-A's that are available, but there are only a handful in the whole state!  (Unfortunately, there isn't one near me).  What's missing and what I surely do miss is Taco Cabana.  Man, I can think of several things that I liked to eat there.  The one in particular that I miss is the quarter chicken meal.  Mmmmm....  Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that there are IHOP's here.  The nearest one is a few towns over, but it is here.  It used to be a little tradition with my husband and me to eat there on one of the mornings during the weekend a time before the baby was born.  As thoughtful as my husband is, he offered to take me there one day for breakfast.  The one thing I can't deny is that they have the best pancakes ever and I was happy to have a familiar taste of home to be able to enjoy here in this new place.

Trying to meet new people

So I am a stay at home mom of a now 9 month old and I needed to start making mom friends for me and my daughter.  Good thing I live in an age where you can pretty easily find groups online.  I managed to join a couple of them so me and my little girl can meet new people and get out of the house.  Well, an obstacle I've just learned that I need to overcome is finding the perfect time of day to attend these things!  If you are a mom, then you know what I mean.  Right now my daughter naps twice a day and unfortunately most of these playdates are schedule right smack in the middle of her morning one which seems to be the most popular time!  Anyway, so far we've been able to finally get to one of them.  I met some new moms and found where there is a park near me.  Little by little I am getting acclimated to this new place.

The Malls around here

Well, i finally went to two of the nearest malls around the area.  The one nearest to me was a little disappointing, but I think it was because I was looking for something in particular that I did not find.  I was looking for curtains and a curtain rod for my little girl's room.  The only department stores that were in this mall were Macy's, Sears and JCPenney.  Unfortunately, they had a sad selection of home goods overall.  This is the reason I concluded that this mall was "small."  I don't think I've been back since, but I will give it another try in the future for shopping in general, especially since it is so close.  The other mall that is about 20 minutes away has recently been updated according to my husband.  It literally is a bigger mall and has more department store selections and even an "upscale" area of stores.  Besides the upscale part which is available in Houston (but not in every mall), this size and selection of mall is what I'm generally used to.  Needless to say, I really miss the selection of stores that I had available where I moved from.  Shopping is not the same anymore.=(

It's beautiful up here!

I'm usually oblivious to my surroundings so I'm not surprised that it's taken me this long to realize that it is so beautiful here.  There are so many trees!  My husband one day pointed out to me that they make up the horizon on our way home.  Anyway, one way I finally saw how nice it is here is when I was driving back from my first trip to Target here.  I went through an actual nice neighborhood where the houses where big, spaced out  with big yards and well kept like right out of a magazine.  This is when I first told myself that I really need to start taking pictures.  Another time was when I was driving back from another shopping trip and I saw this cute small beach with a playground.  Most of the way had nice houses and scenery also.  I wish I was able to describe how different it is here.  Anyway, I like driving down that street to go home.  I've taken some pics of the lakes around here which are almost as abundant as the trees.  They don't do this place justice, but it is so you can begin to get an idea.

DQ is that you?

One Saturday we headed out to go to shopping and realized we were hungry so we looked for somewhere to stop and eat on the way. I was sooo excited to see a Dairy Queen because I did not think there would be one here. We stopped. It was funny because for some reason my husband made a point to stress that they probably would not have the same selection on the menu like they do in Texas. He was preparing me... As he was giving me this lecture I was looking at the menu they had posted on their window and saw only desserts on it. I told him, "I think they only sell ice cream." He looked at the menu, then got out of the car to check "inside." I took a closer look and saw that there was not even any sitting room--no tables, no chairs. All I saw was one employee dispensing food from one wall of materials. There wasn't even a drive-thru. I finally realized that everyone that was coming to eat was getting out of their car and congregating to a walk up window. He came back to tell me what I had already figured out: Yup, they only sold ice cream! Man, and I was already looking forward to their food! Well, we had to move on. We drove to our first destination--Marshalls (they do not have Ross stores in this state and I'm still sad about it) in hopes of finding another burger place we would like to eat at. None. They have a whole lot of pizza selection here for some reason, though. Anyway, I had to wait to get through looking at the store for us to drive all the way back to our place so we could get some Wendy's! Oh, the hunger, and the irony.

My little girl's own space

Since my baby girl was born we had been living in a one bedroom apartment in Houston so I never had the joy of decorating a room for her. Well, now that we've moved she has her own room and we needed to buy furniture for her to put her clothes in. She already had a crib that her grandparents bought her so we just need to buy furniture in the matching color--white. We really didn't know where to begin since we are in a completely new city and state and there are not the same stores here that we would have gone to in Houston. We tried Burlington's and they had quite a bit of a selection that I was actually surprised about, but not in the color that we were looking for. Then we went to Babies 'R Us and I was very disappointed that they did not even sell baby furniture. I know they do in Houston. Anyway, as a last ditch effort we went to some furniture store that was by BRU and it was a reasonably priced place. They didn't have nursury furniture, but they did have children's furniture. I don't know if we were just tired of looking (I wouldn't have known where else to go honestly) or desperate because we just went ahead and bought her a white dresser with mirror and a chest. Now that it is in her room it actually looks nice and coordinated :) I haven't finished all the decorating, but this is what one of pieces looks like. My little girl has her own space!

I got a GPS and I'm using it!

So I used my GPS that my lovely husband was kind enough to purchase for me for the first time recently. He took his car in to the dealership for repair and I knew he would probably be there for a good while so I volunteered to go pick him up. I hadn't the faintest idea where he was. In fact, I hadn't driven around the area at all myself yet so I had to use the GPS. It wasn't super easy to use and I turned into the wrong street once or twice (it doesn't tell me the name of the street to turn on), but it got me there. I complained to him about it and he finally gave me a little lesson on how to use and read the darn thing. Then, he suggested we go to Wal-Mart (aren't we there all the time?!) and had me find it in the gadget and drive there all on my own. I didn't go to the nearest one (something we needed to fix on it), but at least I learned that to get to the nice further one I don't have to pay any tolls. The way he made it sound about driving around here you would have to pay a toll on every road. I realized that the main one I would pay a toll on is the highway that takes me into the city.